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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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PAMPHLETS for the PEOPLE
No. 11
DEITY AND DESIGN
by
Chapman Cohen
THE PIONEER PRESS
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Deity and Design
THE ONE certain thing about the history of the human intellect
is that it runs, from ignorance to knowledge. Man begins knowing
nothing of his own nature or of the nature of the world in which he
is living. He continues acquiring a little knowledge here and
there, with his vision broadening and his understanding deepening
as his knowledge increases. Had man commenced with but a very small
fraction of the knowledge he now possesses, the present state of
the human mind would be very different from what it is. But the
method by which knowledge is acquired is of the slowest. It is by
way of what is called trial and error. Blunders are made rapidly,
to be corrected slowly; some of the most primitive errors are not,
on a general scale, corrected even to-day. Man begins by believing,
on what appears to be sound evidence, that the earth is flat, only
to discover later that it is a sphere. He believes the sky to be a
solid something and the heavenly bodies but a short distance away.
His conclusions about himself are as fantastically wrong as those
he makes about the world at large. He mistakes the nature of the
diseases from which he suffers, and the causes of the things in
which he delights. He is as ignorant of the nature of birth as he
is of the cause of death. Thousands of generations pass before he
takes the first faltering steps along the road of verifiable
knowledge, and hundreds of thousands of generations have not
sufficed to wipe out from the human intellect the influence of
man's primitive blunders.
Prominent among these primitive misunderstandings is the
belief that man is surrounded by hosts of mysterious ghostly
agencies that are afterwards given human form. These ghostly beings
form the raw material from which the gods of the various religions
are made, and they flourish best where knowledge is least. Of this
there can be no question. Atheism, the absence of belief in gods,
is a comparatively late phenomenon in history. It is the belief in
gods that begins by being universal. And even among civilized
peoples it is the least enlightened who are most certain about the
existence of the gods. The religions scientist or philosopher says:
"I believe "; the ignorant believer says: " I know."
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DEITY AND DESIGN
Now it would indeed be strange if primitive man was right on
the one thing concerning which exact knowledge is not to be gained,
and wrong about all other things on which knowledge has either
been, or bids fair to be, won. All civilized peoples reject the
world-theories that the savage first formulates. Is it credible
that with regard to gods he was at once and unmistakably correct?
It is useless saying that we do not accept the gods of the
primitive world. In form, no; in essence, yes. The fact before us
is that all ideas of gods can be traced to the earliest stages of
human history. We have changed the names of the gods and their
characteristics; we even worship them in a way that is often
different from the primitive way; but there is an unbroken line of
descent linking the gods of the most primitive peoples to those of
modern man. We reject the world of the savage; but we still, in our
churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, perpetuate the theories
he built upon that world.
_____
In this pamphlet I am not concerned with all the so-called
evidences that are put forth to prove the existence of a God. I say
"so called evidences," because they are not grounds upon which the
belief in God rests; they are mere excuses why that belief should
be retained. Ninety per cent. of believers in God would not
understand these "proofs." Roman Catholic propagandists lately, as
one of the advertisements of the Church, have been booming the
arguments in favor of a God as stated by Thomas Aquinas. But they
usually preface their exposition -- which is very often
questionable -- by the warning that the subject is difficult to
understand. In the case of Roman Catholics I think we might well
raise the percentage of those who do not understand the arguments
to ninety-five per cent. In any case these metaphysical,
mathematical, and philosophic arguments do not furnish the grounds
upon which anyone believes in God. They are, as I have just said,
nothing more than excuses framed for the purpose of hanging on to
it. The belief in God is here because it is part of our social
inheritance. We are born into an environment in which each newcomer
finds the belief in God established, backed up by powerful
institutions, with an army of trained advocates committed to its
defence and to the destruction of everything that tends to weaken
the belief. And behind all are the countless generations during
which the belief in God lived on man's ignorance and fear.
In spite of the alleged "proofs" of the existence of God,
belief in him, or it, does not grow in strength or certainty. These
proofs do not prevent the number of avowed disbelievers increasing
to such an extent that, whereas after Christians proclaiming for
several generations that Atheism -- real Atheism -- does not exist,
the defenders of godism are now shrieking against the growing
number of Atheists, and there is a call to the religious world to
enter upon a crusade against Atheism. The stage in which heresy
meant little more than all exchange of one god for another has
passed. It has become a case of acceptance or rejection of the idea
of God, and the growth is with those who reject.
This is not the way in which proofs, real proofs, operate. A
theory may have to battle long for general or growing acceptance,
but it grows provided it can produce evidence in its support. A
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DEITY AND DESIGN
hypothesis is stated, challenged, discussed, and finally rejected
or accepted. On the question of the hypothesis of God the longer it
is discussed the less it is believed. No wonder that the ideal
attitude of the completely religious should be "on the knee," with
eyes closed and mouths full of nothing but petitions and grossly
fulsome praise. That is also the reason why every religions
organization in the world is so keen upon capturing the child. The
cry is: "If we lose the child we lose everything" -- which is
another way of saying that if we cannot implant a belief in God
before the child is old enough to understand something of what it
is being told, the belief may have to be given up altogether. Keep
the idea of God away from the child and it will grow up an Atheist.
If there is a God, the evidence for his existence must be
found in this world. We cannot start with another world and work
back to this one. That is why the argument from design in nature is
really fundamental to the belief in deity. It is implied in every
argument in favor of Theism, although nowadays, in its simplest and
most honest form, it is not so popular as it was. But to ordinary
men and women it is still the decisive piece of evidence in favor
of the existence of a God. And when ordinary men and women cease to
believe in God, the class of religious philosophers who spend their
time seeing by what subtleties of thought and tricks of language
they can make the belief in deity appear intellectually respectable
will cease to function.
_____
But let it be observed that we are concerned with the
existence of God only. We are not concerned with whether he is good
or bad; whether his alleged designs are commendable or not. One
often finds people saying they cannot believe there is a God
because the works of nature are not cast in a benevolent mould.
That has nothing to do with the essential issue, and proves only
that Theists cannot claim a monopoly of defective logic. We are
concerned with weather nature, in whole, or in part, shows any
evidence of design.
My case is, first, the argument is fallacious in its
structure; second, it assumes all that it sets out to prove, and
begs the whole question by the language employed; and, third, the
case against design in nature is, not merely that the evidence is
inadequate, but that the evidence produced is completely
irrelevant. If the same kind of evidence were produced in a court
of law, there is not a judge in the country who would not dismiss
it as having nothing whatever to do with the question at issue. I
do not say that the argument from design, as stated, fails to
convince; I say that it is impossible to produce any kind of
evidence that could persuade an impartial mind to believe in it.
The argument from design professes to be one from analogy.
John Stuart Mill, himself without a belief in God, thought the
argument to be of a genuinely scientific character. The present
Dean of St. Paul's, Dr Matthews, says that "the argument from
design employs ideas which everyone possesses and thinks he
understands; and, moreover, it seems evident to the simplest
intelligence that if God exists he must be doing something, and
therefore must be pursuing some ends and carrying out some
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DEITY AND DESIGN
purpose." (The Purpose of God, p. 13.) And Immanuel Kant said the
argument from design was the, oldest, the clearest and the best
adapted to ordinary human reason. But as Kant proceeded to smash
the argument into smithereens, it is evident that he had not very
flattering opinion of the quality of the reason displayed by the
ordinary man.
But what is professedly an argument from analogy turns out to
offer no analogy at all. A popular Non-conformist preacher, Dr.
Leslie Weatherhead, whose book, Why do Men Suffer? might be taken
as a fine text-book of religious foolishness, repeats the old
argument that if we were to find a number of letters so arranged
that they formed words we should infer design in the arrangement.
Agreed, but that is obviously because we know that letters and
words and the arrangement of words are due to the design of man.
The argument here is from experience. We infer that a certain
conjunction of signs are designed because we know beforehand that
such things are designed. But in the case of nature we have no such
experience on which to build. We do not know that natural objects
are made, we know of no one who makes natural objects. More, the
very division of objects into natural and artificial is all
admission that natural objects are not, prima facie, products of
design at all. To constitute an analogy we need to have the same
knowledge that natural objects are manufactured as we have that
man's works are manufactured. Design is not found in nature; it is
assumed. As Kant says, reason admires a wonder created by itself.
The Theist cannot move a step in his endeavor to prove design
in nature without being guilty of the plainest of logical blunders.
It is illustrated in the very language employed. Thus, Dr. Matthews
cites a Roman Catholic priest as saying, "The adaptation of means
to ends is an evident sign of an intelligent cause. Now nature
offers on every side instances of adaptations of means to ends,
hence it follows that nature is the work of an intelligent cause."
Dr. Matthews does not like this way of putting the case, but his
own reasoning shows that he is objecting more to the argument being
stated plainly and concisely rather than to its substance. Nowadays
it is dangerous to make one's religious reasoning so plain that
everyone can understand the language used.
Consider. Nature, we are told, shows endless adaptations of
means to ends. But nature shows nothing of the kind -- or, at
least, that is the point to be proved, and it must not be taken for
granted. If nature is full of adaptation of means to ends, then
there is nothing further about which to dispute. For adaptation
means the conscious adjustment of things or conditions to a desired
consummation. To adapt a thing is to make it fit to do this or
that, to serve this or that purpose. We adapt our conduct to the
occasion, our language to the person we are addressing, planks of
wood to the purpose we have in mind, and so forth. So, of course,
if nature displays an adaptation of means to ends, then the case
for an adapter is established.
But nature shows nothing of the kind. What nature provides is
processes and results. That and nothing more. The structure of an
animal and its relation to its environment, the outcome of a
chemical combination, the falling of rain, the elevation of a
mountain, these things, with all other natural phenomena, do not
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DEITY AND DESIGN
show an adaptation of means to ends, they show simply a process and
its result. Nature exhibits the universal phenomenon of causation,
and that is all. Processes and results looked like adaptations of
means to ends so long as the, movements of nature were believed to
be the expression of the will of the gods. Bat when natural
phenomena are regarded as the inevitable product of the properties
of existence, such terms as "means" and "ends" are at best
misleading, and in actual practice often deliberately dishonest.
The situation was well expressed by the late W.H. Mallock, --
"When we consider the movements of the starry heavens to-
day, instead of feeling it to be wonderful that these are
absolutely regular, we should feel it to be wonderful if they
were ever anything else. We realize that the stars are not
bodies which, unless they are made to move uniformly, would be
floating in space motionless, or moving across it in random
courses. We realize that they are bodies which, unless they
moved uniformly, would not be bodies at all, and would exist
neither in movement nor in rest. We realize that order,
instead of being the marvel of the universe, is the
indispensable condition of its existence -- that it is a
physical platitude, not a divine paradox."
But there are still many who continue to marvel at the wisdom of
God in so planning the universe that big rivers run by great towns,
and that death comes at the end of life instead of in the middle of
it. Divest the pleas of such men as the Rev. Dr. Matthews of their
semi-philosophic jargon, reduce his illustrations to homely
similes, and he is marvelling at the wisdom of God who so planned
things that the two extremities of a Piece of wood should come at
the ends instead of in the middle.
The trick is, after all, obvious. The Theist takes terms that
can apply to sentient life alone, and applies them to the universe
at large. He talks about means, that is, the deliberate planning to
achieve certain ends, and then says that as there are means there
must be ends. Having, unperceived, placed the rabbit in the hat, he
is able to bring it forth to the admiration of his audience. The
so-called adaptation of means to ends -- property, the relation of
processes to results -- is not something that can be picked out
from phenomena as a whole as an illustration of divine wisdom; it
is an expression of a universal truism. The product implies the
process because it is the sum of the power of the factors expressed
by it. It is a physical, a chemical, a biological platitude.
_____
I have hitherto followed the lines marked out by the Theist in
his attempt to prove that there exists a "mind" behind natural
phenomena, and that the universe as we have it is, at least
generally, an evidence of a plan designed by this "mind." I have
also pointed out that the only datum for such a conclusion is the
universe we know. We must take that as a starting point. We can get
neither behind it nor beyond it. We cannot start with God and
deduce the universe from his existence; we must start with the
world as we know it, and deduce God from the world. And we can only
do this by likening the universe as a product that has come into
existence as part of the design of God, much as a table or a
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DEITY AND DESIGN
wireless-set comes into existence as part of the, planning of a
human "mind." But the conditions for doing this do not exist, and
it is remarkable that in many cases critics of the design argument
should so often have criticized it as though it were inconclusive.
But the true line of criticism, the criticism that is absolutely
fatal to the design argument is that there is no logical
possibility of deducing design from a study of natural phenomena.
And there is no other direction in which we can look for proof. The
Theist has never yet managed to produce a case for design which
upon examination might not rightly be dismissed as irrelevant to
the point at issue.
In what way can we set about proving that a thing is a product
of design? We cannot do this by showing that a process ends in a
result, because every process ends in a result, and in every case
the result is an expression of the process. If I throw a brick, it
matters not whether the brick hits a man on the head and kills him,
or if it breaks a window, or merely falls to the,ground without
hurting anyone or anything. In each case the distance the brick
travels, the force of the impact on the head, the window, or the
ground, remains the same, and not the most exact knowledge of these
factors would enable anyone to say whether the result following the
throwing of the brick was designed or not. Shakespeare is credited
with having written a play called King Lear. But whether
Shakespeare sat down with the deliberate intention of writing Lear,
or whether the astral body of Bacon, or someone else, took
possession of the body of Shakespeare during the writing of Lear,
makes no difference whatever to the result. Again, an attendant on
a sick man is handling a number of bottles, some of which contain
medicine, others a deadly poison. Instead of giving his patient the
medicine, the poison is administered and the patient dies. An
inquest is held, and whether the poison was given deliberately, or,
as we say, by accident, there is the same sequence of cause and
effect, of process and result. So one might multiply the
illustrations indefinitely. No one observing the sequences could
possibly say whether any of these unmistakable results were
designed or not. One cannot in any of these cases logically infer
design. The material for such a decision is not present.
Yet in each of these cases named we could prove design by
producing evidence of intention. If when throwing the brick I
intended to kill the man, I am guilty of murder. If I intend to
poison, I am also guilty of murder. If there existed in the mind of
Shakespeare a conception of the plan of Lear before writing, and if
the play carried out that intention, then the play was designed. In
every case the essential fact, without a knowledge of which it is
impossible logically to assume design, is a knowledge of intention.
We must know what was intended, and we must then compare the result
with the intention, and note the measure of agreement that exists
between the two. It is not enough to say that one man threw the
brick, and that, if it had not been thrown, the other would not
have been killed. It is not enough to say if the poison had not
been given the patient would not have died. And it certainly is not
enough to argue that the course of events can be traced from the
time the brick left the hands of the first man until it struck the
second one. That, as I have said, remains true in any case. The law
is insistent that in such cases the intent must be established; and
in this matter the law acts with scientific and philosophic Wisdom.
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DEITY AND DESIGN
Now in all the cases mentioned, and they are, of course,
merely "samples from bulk," we look for design because we know that
men do write plays. men do poison other men, and men do throw
things at each other, with the purpose of inflicting bodily injury.
We are using what is known, as a means of tackling, for the time
being, the unknown. But our knowledge of world-builders, or
universe designers, is not on all-fours with the cases named. We
know nothing whatever about them, and therefore cannot reason from
what is known to what is unknown in the hopes of including the
unknown in the category of the known.
Second, assuming there to be a God, we have no means of
knowing what his intentions were when he made the world -- assuming
that also. We cannot know what his intention was, and we contrast
that intention with the result. On the known facts, assuming God to
exist, we have no means of deciding whether the world we have is
part of his design or not. He might have set about creating and
intended something different. You Cannot, in short, start with a
physical, with a natural fact, and reach intention. Yet if we are
to prove purpose we must begin with intention, and having a
knowledge of that see how far the product agrees with the design.
It is the marriage of a psychical fact with a physical one that
alone can demonstrate intention, or design. Mere agreement of the
"end" with the "means" proves nothing at all. The end is the means
brought to fruition. The fundamental objection to the argument from
design is that it is completely irrelevant.
The belief in God is not therefore based on the perception of
design in nature. Belief in design in nature is based upon the
belief in God. Things are as they are whether there is a God or
not. Logically, to believe in design one must start with God. He,
or it, is not a conclusion but a datum. You may begin by assuming
a creator, and then say he did this or that; but you cannot
logically say that because certain things exist, therefore there is
a God who made them. God is an assumption, not a conclusion. And it
is an assumption that explains nothing. if I may quote from my
book, Theism, or Atheism: --
"To warrant a logical belief in design, in nature, three
things are essential. First, one must assume that God exists.
Second, one must take it for granted that one has a knowledge
of the intention in the mind of the deity before the alleged
design is brought into existence. Finally, one must be able to
compare the result with the intention and demonstrate their
agreement. But the impossibility of knowing the first two is
apparent. And without the first two the third is of no value
whatever. For we, have no means of reaching the first except
through the third. And until we get to the first we cannot
make use of the third. We are thus in a hopeless impasse. No
examination of nature call lead back to God because we lack
the necessary starting point. All the volumes that have been
written and all the sermons that have been preached depicting
the wisdom of organic structures are so much waste of time and
breath. They prove nothing, and can prove nothing. They assume
at the beginning all they require at the end. Their God is not
something reached by way of inference, it is something assumed
at the very outset."
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DEITY AND DESIGN
_____
Finally, if there be a designing mind behind or in nature,
then we have a right to expect unity. The products of the design
should, so to speak, dovetail into each other. A plan implies this.
A gun so designed as to kill the one who fired it and the one at
whom it was aimed would be evidence only of the action of a lunatic
or a criminal. When we say we find evidence of a design we at least
imply the presence of an element of unity. What do we find?
Taking the animal world as a whole, what strikes the observer,
even the religious observer, is the fact of the antagonisms
existing in nature. These are so obvious that religions opinion
invented a devil in order to account for them. And one of the
arguments used by religious people to justify the belief in a
future life is that God has created another world in which the
injustices and blunders of this life may be corrected.
For his case the Theist Requires co-operative action in
nature. That does exist among the social animals, but only as
regards the individuals within the group, and even there in a very
imperfect form. But taking animal life, I do not know of any
instance where it can truthfully be said that different species of
animals are designed so as to help each other. It is probable that
some exceptions to this might be found in the relations between
insects and flowers, but the animal world certainly provides none.
The carnivora not only live on the herbivore, but they live, when
and where they can, on each other. And God, if we may use Theistic
language, prepares for this, by, on the one hand, so equipping the
one that it may often seize its prey, and the other, that it may
often escape. And when we speak of a creation that brings an animal
into greater harmony with its environment, it must not be forgotten
that the greater harmony, the perfection of the "adaptation" at
which the Theist is lost in admiration, is often the condition of
the destruction of other animals. If each were equally well adapted
one of the competing species would die out. If, therefore, we are
to look for design in nature we can, at most, see only the
manifestations of a mind that takes a delight in destroying on the
one hand what has been built upon the other.
There, is also the myriads of parasites, as clear evidence of
design as an anything, that live by the infection and the
destruction of forms of life "higher" than their own. Of the number
of animals born only a very small proportion can ever hope to reach
maturity. If we reckon the number of spermatozoa that are "created"
then the number of those that live are ridiculously small. The
number would be one in millions.
Is there any difference when we come to man? With profound
egotism the Theist argues that the process of evolution is
justified because it has produced him. But with both structure and
feeling there is the same suicidal fact before us. Of the human
structure it would seem that for every step man has, taken away
from mere animal nature God has laid a trap and provided a penalty.
If man will walk upright then he must be prepared for a greater
liability to hernia. If he will live in cities he must pay the
price in a greater liability to tuberculosis. If he will leave his
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DEITY AND DESIGN
animal brothers behind him, he must bear reminders of them in the
shape of a useless coating of hair that helps to contract various
diseases, A rudimentary second stomach that provides the occasion
for appendicitis, rudimentary "wisdom teeth" that give a chance for
mental disease. It has been calculated that man carries about with
him over one hundred rudimentary structures, each absorbing energy
and giving nothing in return.
So one might go on. Nature taken from the point of view most
favorable to the Theist gives us no picture of unified design. Put
aside the impossibility of providing a logical case for the
inferring of design in nature, it remains that the only conception
we can have of a designer is, as W.H. Mallock, a staunch Roman
Catholic, has said, that of "a scatter-brained, semi-powerful,
semi-impotent monster ... kicking his heels in the sky, not perhaps
bent on mischief, but indifferent to the fact that he is causing
it."
____________________
Issued for the Secular Society Limited, and
Printed and Published, by
The Pioneer Press (G.W. FOOTE & Co., LTD.)
2 & 3, Furnival Street, London, E.C.4,
ENGLAND
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PAMPHLETS FOR THE PEOPLE
By CHAPMAN COHEN
(The purpose of this series is to give a bird's-eye view of the
bearing of Freethought on numerous theological, sociological and
ethical questions.)
1. Did Jesus Chit Ever Exist?
2. Morality Without God.
3. what is the Use of Prayer?
4. Christianity and Woman.
5. Must We Have a Religion?
6. The Devil.
7. What is Freethought?
8. Gods and Their Makers.
9. Giving 'em Hell.
10. The Church's Fight for the Child.
11. Deity and Design.
12. What is the Use of a Future Life?
13. Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live.
14. Freethought and the Child.
15. Agnosticism or ... ?
16. Atheism.
17. Christianity And Slavery.
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Edited by CHAPMAN COHEN
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